Casey and I have been preparing for his Rally and Obedience debut this past weekend. We qualified both days in Rally, winning 4th place on Saturday, and qualified once in Obedience. Not bad for a first time out. I have been posting so I would keep a training journal. I have never been good at keeping one up, but this has shown me that there is a great benefit to actually tracking what you do, what works, and the progress you make. This final entry I thought I would post final thoughts and results.
Execution of the exercises was pretty good. Our biggest obstacle was distractions. The second day stress was also a factor. It could have been the stress of doing two days of trialling. It could also have been that the second day's trials were our club's trials which meant I was also checking things out at times or lending a hand rather than focusing my attention on Casey and doing relaxation work with him. It could also have been that I was stressed. (We blew a tire on the way back home Saturday afternoon. Had Judge's dinner that evening. Couldn't set up for our trial until late that evening. What stress?) We qualified in Rally anyway and that's nothing to sneeze at. We both slept well Sunday night. 
We are entered in Rally and Obedience at another trial at the beginning of May and will continue to practice our skills, but do more work on distraction control. I will need to log how this goes to keep us on track and encourage me when I think we're not making progress. I guess if anyone gets anything out of these posts I hope that it shows the benefits of keeping a training log and that you can clicker train Obedience and Rally.
